Silvina Cornillón, a well known champion of Latin American animation, steps into her new function as director of the Quirino Awards with a transparent mission: increase the occasion’s attain and cement its place as a driving drive for Ibero-American animation.
“This isn’t simply symbolic,” Cornillón informed Number of her appointment as the primary Latin American director of the Quirino Awards, which is able to happen this weekend on the Spanish Canary Island of Tenerife. “It’s a dedication to making sure numerous voices are represented and strengthening the bridge connecting all of Ibero-America.”
Cornillón took the reins in a transitional yr, becoming a member of mid-cycle because the eighth version of Quirino equipped for its annual gathering in Tenerife. Alongside the staff, she’s already steering huge concepts, notably the launch of the brand new Futures Lab, which she described as a “collective intelligence undertaking” designed to generate forward-looking methods for the regional animation sector.
“Yearly, we’ve constructed platforms for collaboration, however we realized the dialog usually stayed between us,” she defined. “With the Futures Lab, we need to suppose larger. We’re not simply organizing conferences; we’re committing the sector’s key gamers to take a seat collectively, anticipate future situations, and remodel concepts into concrete actions.”
Backed by Spain’s ICAA, the Futures Lab will convey collectively high business names, public establishments, and coverage thinkers to map out tendencies, deal with challenges like sustainability, discover the implications of AI, and ship a strategic roadmap that may be offered at upcoming cultural summits. There are hopes this initiative will even feed into nationwide insurance policies throughout the area.
Importantly, Cornillón isn’t blind to the anxieties surrounding new applied sciences. Whereas acknowledging the fears, notably across the integration of AI into manufacturing pipelines, she sees alternative. “Like all new know-how, it creates uncertainty, even worry,” she admits. “But when we will combine AI well, it may provide smaller studios and impartial creators the instruments to make content material extra competitively and at decrease value.”
This measured optimism echoes by means of Quirino as an intimate gathering attracting some world heavyweights similar to Disney, Warner Bros., and Titmouse, all current on the occasion’s Co-Manufacturing and Enterprise Discussion board alongside native, impartial producers and filmmakers.
“When worldwide executives discover initiatives with genuine views, and when regional producers see how they will align their methods, your entire ecosystem strengthens,” Cornillón stated. “It’s not nearly dealmaking; it’s about actual collaboration.”
Cornillón’s personal monitor file consists of years of advocacy each as assistant supervisor of animation on the Nationwide Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts of Argentina (INCAA) and coordinating the revered Animation! part of Ventana Sur, however she’s cognisant that true business change requires extra than simply elevating profiles; it’s about shifting constructions. She factors to success tales just like the Chile-Spain co-production “Firsts,” which began life profitable La Liga award in 2019 earlier than being pitched at Annecy in 2020 and arrives at Quirino efficiently accomplished and nominated in Finest Sequence. “These are the sorts of tales the place you see that what we do at Quirino has an actual, traceable affect on careers,” Cornillón stated. “It’s a privilege to be a part of that.”
The Quirino staff, led alongside longtime collaborators, together with the present govt producer of the awards, José Luis Farias, has broad ambitions to safe long-term stability and growth. “There’s a lot chance,” she stated, reflecting on the staff’s plans for a multi-year technique post-2025. “We need to suppose past one version to the subsequent; we need to create a plan, a roadmap.”
She additionally sees the distinctiveness of Quirino as key to its energy: “It’s not Cannes; it’s not Annecy. There’s area right here, area for connection, for reflection, for significant alternate between small gamers and large ones.”
This type of management appears set to mix pragmatism with a utopian spirit, one she believes defines the animation world itself. “Animation is an extremely demanding craft,” she displays. “It takes love, self-discipline, and infrequently this virtually utopian want to alter the world. So when you may assist make a type of goals actual, that’s when the whole lot is sensible.”
Quirino’s opens for its eighth version with Cornillón and her staff not simply celebrating Ibero-American expertise, however decided to form its future.
